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By my count, there are currently three major scandals being exposed from within the Obama administration. Three completely separate and independent messes, each with their own casts of characters and convoluted plot lines. They are:

Operation Fast And Furious, where the ATF — with the knowledge and support of several other federal law enforcement agencies — pressured gun dealers to make otherwise-illegal gun sales to “straw buyers” for Mexican drug cartels, then arranged for the weapons to be smuggled across the border into Mexico. All the while with absolutely zero provisions for tracking the guns once they got into Mexico, keeping the guns from being used to kill people (including a LOT of Mexicans and at least one American border patrol agent), or telling the Mexican government “by the way, we’re giving your arch-enemies some military grade hardware for no real definable purpose, so heads up!”

Ideologically, I’d say the Justice Department one is the worst. These activists have been defeated, time and again, in getting their beliefs past courts. They haven’t gotten them written into law. So now they’re trying to do it by executive fiat.That’s entirely consistent with the Obama administration’s modus operandi, as they’ve been pushing a lot of things without bothering to actually get a law passed declaring it. The UnWar in Libya comes to mind, but that’s only one example.

Economically, I’d have to say the NLRB is the worst. South Carolina and Boeing put a LOT into that new plant, and they are both thoroughly ripshit over the NLRB basically inventing a new “right” — “once a company has a union plant, all future expansions have to be unionized as well, no matter what state they’re in, even if not a single union job is threatened in the slightest.” It’s turning unions into the economic equivalent of AIDS — once you get it, there’s no cure, but you might be able to control the symptoms, but eventually the unions will kill you. Witness the old GM and Chrysler.

Politically, I’d have to say Fast And Furious is the worst. The only explanation that even comes close to hanging together is that the Obama administration found itself with no proof to its claims that a LOT of the Mexican drug cartel’s guns came from the US, so they ginned up this program to make those claims a reality. As a bit of cover, they came up with the “we want to track these weapons back to the bigwigs,” but never actually bothered to set up a tracking program once they got past the border. In the meantime, Mexico is (exceptionally righteously) pissed about it, and at least one American border patrol agent has been killed by one of those guns.

Another unifying element of all these is how they’ve all gone almost criminally underreported in the lamestream media.

So, let’s toss it out to you fine folks — which of these three will cause the most damage to the Obama administration? Or will it be something else I’ve missed?

About The Author

For the record, JT, my understanding is that the bullets used in the Terry murder were too damaged for ballistics testing, so there’s no way of knowing exactly which firearm(s) fired them. It’s a somewhat reasonable assumption that one of the walked guns fired the shots, but there’s no proof beyond their presence at the scene.

Anonymous

True enough, Boyd, but I gotta tell ya — the fact that the guns were there and can’t be excluded as the murder weapons is good enough for me. I apply the “felony murder” principle. When someone is killed during a home invasion, all the invaders are held equally guilty, regardless of who actually pulled the trigger. Here, the gun was there and in the hands of the bad guys — I don’t care which barrel the fatal rounds came out of.

J.

Boyd Garrett

Sorry, J, but that’s a bit too cavalier for me, and smacks of the “too good to check” approach of the lunatics of the far left.

Anonymous

Hate to lose you on that point, old chum, but I really gotta… er… “stick to my guns” on the “felony murder” parallel. It just fits too well here. If we were trying the gunmen, we wouldn’t need to prove who fired the fatal shot to convict them for murder. In this case, it’s clear that one of the Mexican drug cartel guys did it, and one of them had the Fast and Furious weapon. Whether or not it was he murder weapon boils down to nothing more than random chance.

J.

Frank O’Connell

(duplicate boiler plate comment deleted)

Frank O’Connell

Thank you for losing. Have a nice day.

Anonymous

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Frank O’Connell

uhm, yeah.

Anonymous

The report said the bullets could not be ‘confirmed’, NOR COULD THEY BE EXCLUDED.

PBunyan

Since there is no longer a watchdog media in this country and our press is merely a propaganda wing of the administration, I’d say Obama will skate on all three scandals.

As for things you’ve missed…

And then there’s the obviously fabricated birth certificate. Not that we need a long discussion about that, I just wanted to point out how, had Obama not been a Marxist/Socialist/Democrat/Communist, all the obvious flaws would have been front page above the fold news every day and the lead story every day on the national news. But since our media is not really media, but just part of the government now–not a peep.

Anonymous

Do NOT get me started on the Birther BS, PB. I’ve smacked that around enough times; I’m just tired of it. It’s a loser argument from the outset.

J.

PBunyan

I’m not saying that Obama is not a citizen, nor that he’s not qualified to be President. And yes, it’s a loosing issue– I agree on that point.

All I’m saying is that the “long form” released last spring is an obviously fabricated document. There is overwhelming evidence of that; it’s not even debatable. My point was that there was zero press coverage just like with all the other scandals.

Most of us have stopped wanting to see what you write, Talking Points Echo.

PBunyan

Ahh, but my asshole Orc friend, I did read your comment. You replied to me so it was e-mailed to me before Jay Tea deleted it. I responded to it below, but you were too dimwhitted to understand what I wrote. Then again, you Orcs aren’t known for your reading or critical thinking skills are you?

And why whould McCain have to apologize for calling us the Heros that defeated the forces of evil? That doesn’t make any sense either. I know you servants of evil Sauron got a thrill out of it, but I don’t think it really insulted anyone.

Anonymous

It’s “Hobbiton,” you worthless git. And your comments that I deleted were the same, word for word, that contributed NOTHING to the discussion except to allow you to express your contempt for the other people here in your trademark blazingly ignorant and gobsmackingly stupid manner.

You know you irritate me, Frank. You know exactly how you irritate me. I have demonstrated here that not only will I delete your more idiotic comments, I will cut you even less slack than I do others.

You have a couple of choices here: you can continue to say stupid things and watch them vanish until I get fed up and ban you, you can go away of your own volition, or you can stop saying mindbogglingly stupid things and actually contribute to the discussion.

Your call. My preferences are in inverse order as listed above, but it’s your choice. But if I had to bet, I’d say you’ll end up going for the first one. Which is my least preferred outcome, but it’s in your hands.

Editorial Powers Activate! Hammer To The Ready!

J.

Anonymous

When the likes of chico are tollerated, what does that say about the asshattery of Frank?
😉

Anonymous

And I just noticed that Frank didn’t have a damned thing to say about the topic at hand. Entirely typical…

Yes, but you’ve threatened an even sterner warning to follow soon, so I’m sure he’ll reform. After all, we’ve all seen how quickly you got fed up with The Wee Lard. Frank knows he’ll be gone for sure in five or six years or so if he doesn’t shape up.

I’ve yet to see a single post of his that could be construed as any sort of contribution to discussion or rational debate. Rather, his intent seems identical with every single post on every topic: to insult and inflame while spouting some tired and false talking points.

Anonymous

All too true, but one thing I’ve never done is bluff. Once I make an explicit warning, I stand by it. And I’ve done so here.

J.

PBunyan

Jay Tea, please delete this comment. It is not and was not my intention to hijack your thread, but Orc O’Connell is just such an asshole that I have to respond to his reply which was e-mailed to me of course, and I’m assuming that our servant of Sauron friend will get this in it’s e-mail, too, so no need to leave it up here.

Anyway, Mr. Orc, I never said it was “untrue”, you’re either a liar or have poor reading comprehension (actually that could be and/or). Then again Sauron doesn’t need his Orcs to be able to read or reason, so you’re very good at what you do. Jay immediately jumped to the “birther” thing when I brought up the fabricated certificate but that was not where I was going with that. The birther issue is a looser not because it’s untrue– and by that I’m not saying that it is true either– the truth of the issue is totally irrelevant at this point because the “birthers” want Obama to be removed from office and that’s simply not gonna happen. That is why it’s a looser.

Obama could announce from the Oval Office tonite that in truth he is not, nor was he ever a citizen, and he had no birth certificate because he is actually Al Mahdi*, the 12th Imam, and his singular goal has been from the start to destroy the Great Satan, the United States. The next day the House could impeach him and the Senate would still NOT vote to remove him from office. Not only that, but next November he’d still get 30% of the popular vote and Massachucettes’, Vermont’s, and Califorina’s electoral votes.

Now any honest person could easily look at the PDF that was released by the Whitehouse last spring and easily see for themselves with the simplest graffic software the obvious, damning flaws, and no honest person who took the time to objectively and carefully examine the document could conclude that it is anything but fabricated. The changes of of color depth (256K to grayscale) within the same word and the scan shadows that show some letters were scanned in one direction while others were scanned in other directions, again within the same word, are as damningly obviuos as the famous superscript “th” of Rathergate. I have to say that I never questioned (at least never seriously), nor ever cared about Obama citizenship or eligibility before he released that document. Now I do have questions, but still don’t really care for the reasons stated above.

No, it does not prove that Obama is not a citizen, nor ineligible for the Presidency. All it proves is that he released a fabricated document. There could be any number of reasons why. Well, that and the fact that he committed a Federal crime in doing so. Still, it would never get him removed from office even if he was impeached. It would be like when they tried to get Clinton for lying under oath– the very least of his crimes.

But it should be a scandal. Instead, not a peep.

Then again if we want to go down the road of things that would be scandals if the current President was a Republican, that would be a long, long, list. But there are a lot more serious things for Saurons minions in the press to report on like a unknown Representative sending inappropriate e-mails to a minor, an obscure Senator having random sex in an airport restroom, or a Vice Presidential candidate wearing expensive clothes. Now those are the kind of things that could tear apart the fabric of our very society. Obama’s mysterious past? His willful fascist subversions of our laws and Constitution? Nothing to see here folks. Move along. Nothing to see.

That was my point you asshole.

Sincerely,

Frodo Bunyan, the racist, bigoted, terrorist.

*It’s my understanding that Al Mahdi is supposed appear as a three year old who crawls out of a well so he wouldn’t have a birth certificate either.

For me it was father listed as black. In 1961 blacks were known as Negros

PBunyan

There were a number of things that were questionable like that- not 100%, but 90-95% maybe, but the scanning irregularities cannot be explained away. There is only one way that could have happened. They are the smoking gun.

PBunyan

You really are that dense. You can respond to a comment and have no clue what the comment actually said… Hmmm…. You really are an Orc.

Mr Kimber

Frank

You asked a question and I answered it. This the kind of mistake the people in the Obama adminstration would make b/c they don’t know history. They think they are smarter then they really are…kinda like you. Blacks started calling themselves black after the 1972 Olympics…look up “black power” Orc

Anonymous

I’ll Pass. So Far this is a Teflon Administration.

retired.military

But But Steve Crickmore said yesterday that Obama had had no scandals.

NLRB – Unions will be upset because they will lose, right to work are upset because NLRB tried it.

Anonymous

Yeah I’m going to have to agree with DocEpador’s Teflon Administration. If we had a media that put forth half the effort investigating Obama’s administration as they did Palin’s emails, it would be a different story.

But given what I know about the three, I’d say gunrunner is the worst- it actually led to deaths. Can you imagine the outrage if Bush had been the President when this happened?

I do like your imagery- unions are the economic equivalent of AIDS. That’s gotta go on a poster or a bumper sticker..

I’d have to say that the gun running to Mexico has to be the one that will take down BATFE managers, its defacto head and possibly Holder. You don’t need the press to be with you when you have facts but it sure does help getting out the story of misconduct by several departments.

Meiji Man

BATF is going to have the biggest damage to the White House.
The White House as armed and supported a insurrection in a sovereign country that is supposed to be one of our allies. They refuse to seal the boarder allowing the insurgents to rearm, and trafficked drugs that cross porous boarder finances the revolution. If Mexico had balls they’d declare war on us in self defense.

Hispanics have been greatly impacted by Obama’s policies, And money directed to the inner cities have gone to black neighborhoods. At the expense of the Latinos. This is the reason why Barry keeps sucking up to La Raza. He believes he can treat the Hispanic voter like he treats any other minority voting block.

The result will be either depressed turnout or a swing of votes to a Republican candidate.

Anonymous

In my book, Fast and Furious has the most potential. SOMEONE DIED. Darryl Issa is not going to let it go. Only way it gets swept under the rug is if the House reverts to the Democrats. It also has too many loose ends to pull at. You don’t violate another nation’s sovereignty buy running guns across it’s border – decisions like that are not made at the field level. Yeah, Barry can throw someone under the bus – but I’d think the BP officer’s family would file a suit against him – and the designated Team Member would start singing real loud.

The DOJ packing is another issue. Typical of hypocritical liberals. But it won’t get much play in the MSM in order to piss people off. Only hope is a conservative outing of the libs in 2012 – at which point there would be a wholesale house cleaning. THAT would force the notice of the MSM, and I doubt the libs would want to hang around and fight over that.

NLRB issue is in Congress’ ballpark now. Congress (conservatives) could tell the NLRB to stuff it. If Barry or Harry tries to impede them, then they can defund NLRB. Even liberals won’t work for free.

Anonymous

None of the above. For the foreseeable future, the economy’s going to suck the wind out of all three of those potential stories. (And of the three, only the ATF story strikes me as truly newsworthy).

Anonymous

My personal favorite would be the gun – runner scandal. Though I must admit to a certain amount of pleasure when I imagine Obama trying to explain to South Carolina voters that purposely shutting down a new plant in south Carolina is “focusing on jobs”.

Anonymous

I’ll vote for the NLRB issue. I think there will be a lot of businesses that will close up the purse strings this time around because of the Obama administration’s anti-business policies. This guy has done a great job of playing both sides of the fence with the private sector but his lack of ability to kick start the economy or even understand it will drive away his business support.

Anonymous

The ATF scandal might be the one that will stick.

But if the Repubs use the Boeing story as an example of the anti-job creating policies of this administration, it may be noticed by more than those directly affected.

As for which I believe is the worst, (as in most dangerous) that has to be the voting rights scandal. Unfortunately that will never get the media play or the opposition attention. The media have proved time and again they want the Dems to win, no matter what (or who), and the Reps would sound like crybabies if they pounded on this issue.

Oysteria

Unless South Carolina really starts squawking about losing the Boeing plant no one will even know. Hell people don’t know now and as long as the media doesn’t have much to say about it, it will remain obscure.

Stacking the voting rights division with radicals is disgusting and shows these bastards have no regard for the rule of law, do not care about honest citizens and shows that raw, naked power is all they care about. Will it go anywhere? Hell no. No one knows about it.

Operation Fast & Furious is the only story that’s even beginning to get any traction. The WaPo finally ran a story about it late last month, but didn’t make it sound nearly as bad as it really is. And they’re guilty of carrying the ATF’s water for the operation early on with their reporting. They dutifully reported what they were spoon fed by “sources”. And it was horseshit.

Anon Y. Mous

Fast & Furious will easily be the most damaging. The voting rights issue is a race issue, and Obama / Holder are not going to be held accountable on a race issue. He will lose on the NLRB issue in the end, but the political damage to Obama will be minimal. But, letting the guns into Mexico, where they were used in the murders of not only people connected to Mexican political figures, but also in the death of a US law enforcement official, that is a political killer. Especially when it is tied to the actual motive rather than the cover motive. They did it so they could use the results restrict the rights of American to buy guns. This one will get hung around his neck, right where it belongs.

With Obama, the scandals tend to get lost, lacking in media coverage amid the devastation he has wrought upon the economy. But when American agents and Mexican officials die as a result, the gun-running becomes more than some political dispute.